claw clipping

Much like you would tranquilise a bear to brush its teeth, we use the tranquilising power of a car ride around nap time to clip the claws of our little bear. Doing it while she is awake risks damage to life and limb for all involved.

collared

Schuyler's latest obsession is fastening clips together whether it is on a dog collar, car seat or high chair. She is absolutely fascinated. She has also started truly asserting herself in ways which are sometimes cute and sometimes make you want to use naughty words. This weekend we tried to change her out of a stripey dress into a denim one more appropriate to the cowboy party she was to attend. She cried and kept trying to put the stripey dress back on. We thought it might be the other outfit was the problem but we tried others to no avail. Back on with the stripey dress. The next day she cried putting on a new outfit and went over to the dirty clothes basket and dug out... the stripey dress. We weren't going to be pushed around by this 25 lb bear so we made her wear.... another, different stripey dress. That's how stubborn the three of us can be... but it also shows that we find compromises where we can.

pegged

Peg in French is "la cheville" in case you are wondering. That's the kind of thing i have to look up all the time. When i was studying in France in university, none of my friends ever spoke of pegs. Or played with carts. Or changed diapers. Or spoke of kittens and mittens. Shows you how little of college work ends up in real life. When am i going to use the word for "Id" in French with Schuyler?

We've also become a family. We've become a family in beautiful ways. We've also become a family in ways that make me feel slightly disconcerted: we've become The Youngs. Before we were 'Liz and Jonathan' which was fine (although being part of 'William and Jonathan' for most of my life i was starting to enjoy being me for a while). Now that Schuyler is here people refer to us as 'The Youngs' which makes me feel like my Mum and Dad should be coming over or something. But it is also a beautiful feeling of e pluribus unum.

wild baby

towering tomatoes

Perhaps stacking tins of tomatoes stolen from her parent's cupboards will be a marketable skill in the future. For now it just earns cuteness points from her parents. This is probably the kind of act that only the persons who made her and raised her would find cute. If someone else showed me that their kid was stacking tins of vegetables, I would find that about as interesting as proof reading an insurance contract. But this is my kid. And i want the cuteness i feel captured.

xoxo

Is it a hug? Or a tackle? Only Trystan knows for sure.

We came home one day to find the fairies had come and set up a little table and chairs with an umbrella on which our little bear can serve tea.

da da's shoes

Every morning while her parents struggle to get showered and dressed Schuyler explores her father's clothes and shoes. She particularly likes his heavy loafers which, despite the obvious size issue, she adores trying on...

fun in floral

"Hmm, what can I do out here?"

(She actually did a proper pull up right after this photo was taken.)

"Oh wow!"

"Danger really should have been my middle name"

"My favourite buddy"

"Where's the remote? I need a beer..."

walk the dog

Who does Schuyler like more? A) Mama B) Dada

Correct Answer: C) none of the above!
Magic is definitely her favourite.

fashionista - let's have a blast

Fashion that will truly blow people's minds. This season's "must have" in Gaza.

gardener in training

Schuyler is finally delivering some return on the investment we have made in her by watering the plants that she normally thrashes. Our other solution is to only have cacti (no watering and painful to thrash).

good morning

car!

Schuyler has become entranced by her two little toy cars. "Car! car!" is a frequent refrain around our house at the moment. She will go hunt them down in her toy box. She loves to drive them under the dining room table. Her cars will sometimes accompany us when we go out on errands. Schuyler also likes to point out any cars she notices in her magazines.

busy busy bear

The cliches are true.

"reading"

One of Schuyler's favourite things in the whole world is "reading" (I've no idea where she gets that from!). Every single morning after she has been released from breakfast, she will invariably run around and pick up some light reading material (the newspaper, magazines, philosophy text books, etc.) plonk it on our coffee table and then pull out a little stool for herself and "read". "Reading" for her generally consists of dragging her finger around the page and releasing a variety of vowel based sounds until she hits a familiar object (ball! car! dog!).

It was one of the most heartwarming things we as parents could witness. It's up there with the rare hugs.

all work and no play

Schuyler received a "baby laptop" for her first birthday.

She has recently become very interested in it.

We can only hope that she will become a female Bill Gates and provide for her parents in their retirement years.